


Some Things You Can't Escape

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, MSR, On the Run, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:38:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully has a pregnancy scare on the run with Mulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Things You Can't Escape

Late, as in not on time. This certainly isn’t the time. It’s been almost two years since I became someone I never imagined I’d be, and I still feel him like a phantom limb. There’s all this pain, and when I look, he’s not there. A part of me has been amputated. I can’t do that again, any of it. Not now. Can I?

I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t know for sure. I’ll just take the keys now, before he gets up, slip out, finish the test before he has time to worry. Unless there’s reason to worry.

The sun will be up soon, and the light might wake him. Shoes on. Get in the car.

The pharmacy door opens and the wind whips my hair in my face. Did I really just go out in public in sweatpants at five in the morning to buy a pregnancy test? I threw my coat on over his old t-shirt with no bra, and I left. Yes, that really just happened. What if he wakes up and finds me gone? I should have told him. But there’s nothing to tell. Right?

The cliche in the movies is the woman buying six pregnancy tests and taking them all, hoping for different results. I can’t even seem to pick out one. Not the cheapest one, something in the middle should work. Pay cash, get out fast. 

Do I want my receipt? What am I going to do, return it?

The plastic bag crinkles as I open the door of our tiny studio apartment, a sublet from a guy who knows a guy. A few months here, maybe.  

He’s still in bed.

“What’ve you got there?”

Shit.

“Go back to sleep.” Maybe that’ll work. That’s not going to work.

He sits up.

“Scully?”

Give up. Sit on the end of the bed. That damn crinkling bag again. What are the words? I never had to do this the first–

“What’s up?” he asks, hand on my shoulder. “Hold on, let me get a light.”

The bed shifts as he crawls to the top of it and clicks the lamp to life. It shifts again as he crawls back to me. Say something. His hands are there again, on my arms, rubbing. He’s waiting. Hand him the bag.

“What’s this?” Crinkle. “Oh.”

What’s that burning feeling in my esophagus?

“I have–” a quick hitch in my voice, but I recover fast. How is my throat this dry? “I have reason to believe I should take one of those,” is the best I can do. I’m holding out my hand, and he gives me the box. “Be right back.”

I read the instructions, pee on the stick, set it on the edge of the sink, careful that the end is not touching anything. I stare at the instructions again, not comprehending the words.

Was that knocking? Yes. It was light, but it was there.

I pull up my pants and turn the doorknob so the door hangs slightly ajar, close the toilet lid and sit on it.  He’s there, standing over me.

“It needs a few minutes to deliberate,” I say, and he sits on the edge of the tub.

“Scully?”

Pretend to read the box. Don’t look him in the eye.

“Look at me, Scully.”

Damn it. I do, and I don’t see the panic face.

“We could stop running. If we need to. We can’t stop hiding, but we might be able to stop running.”

“How can we?” I hear myself ask. “I can’t deal with this on top of… everything.”

“You can do anything.”

This makes me chuckle, the short, dry, sad laughter of the exhausted person who has finally cracked.

“I mean it,” he adds, and holds my hand.

There’s nothing else to say. These minutes are unbearable. I pour myself a glass of cold water from the bathroom sink and drink the entire thing in one movement. He’s watching me. I can feel the warmth of his gaze as I stare at the empty glass.

When it’s finally time to check, it’s negative. I’m relieved and sad, and I breathe out but not back in, not right away. I shake my head no, and he kneels down on the bathroom floor with his hands on my bent knees. I hug him hard. I don’t know for how long.

I don’t know for how long, and I don’t know what I feel.


End file.
